One or more aspects of the present application relate generally to videotelephony and more specifically to techniques for managing dynamic focus during video conferencing.
The use of videotelephony has become increasing widespread, particularly in view of its deployment on a variety of platforms including smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers, and increased reliance on video conferencing solutions in place of face-to-face meetings requiring travel.
The user experience during a video conference depends on sufficient information being transmitted between sites of the video conference. A basic requirement, generally, is that the video and audio of a current speaker at a given video conference site be captured and transmitted to other participants, preferably at as high a quality (for example, in terms of resolution and/or frames per second) as the transmission medium will support. Some video conferencing solutions therefore provide for camera or focus switching, so that the camera focus at a given site switches between different participants as they take turns speaking. At the same time, however, user experience can be enhanced by also transmitting sufficient video and/or audio data so that users can appreciate contextual cues from remote participants while another participant is speaking.